Fred Markham in Russia; Or, The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Cousin Giles chartered three of these vehicles to carry themselves and their luggage, and the lads laughed heartily as they found themselves seated astride on one of them, rattling along the quays and over the bridge to the English hotel, among hundreds of similar vehicles and long-coated, bearded people, who looked as if they did not think there was anything strange in the matter at all.

The Miss Bensons, the kind-hearted landladies of the hotel, could just manage to accommodate the travellers; and they soon found themselves lodged in very clean rooms, and as comfortable as at any hotel in England. After the fresh sea air they found the heat very great, and the houses felt like stoves; indeed, they heard that the weather had been excessively hot for some days. They, however, had come up with a fresh breeze, which increased almost to a gale, and effectually cooled the air.

Cousin Giles was not a man to let the grass grow under his feet; so, as soon as dinner was over, he and his young companions sauntered out to take in, as he said, as much of Saint Petersburg as they could that evening. Just above the city the Neva divides itself into several branches, which form a number of marshy islands, on which islands Saint Petersburg is built. The streets have been laid out to accommodate themselves somewhat to the turnings of the river; so that they are not at right angles to each other, as might have been expected, though as much regularity as possible has been observed. The most central spot is the Admiralty Square, a vast, irregular, open space, with the river on one side of it; and near the river stands, on a vast block of granite, a colossal equestrian statue of Peter the Great, with his arm stretched out in an attitude of command. Forming the different sides of this vast open space are some of the finest public buildings in the city: the Admiralty with its golden spire, the beautiful Isaac Church with its superb granite columns, the Winter Palace with its long rows of richly ornamented windows, the War Office, the Senate House, and many others. At one end, with a crescent of fine buildings before it, which contain the War Office, stands a lofty column of polished granite, consisting only of two blocks of stone, it is said. It is called the Alexander Column, and is dedicated to him as “the Restorer of Peace to the World.” He is so called by the Russians in consequence of the part he took in the overthrow of Napoleon. On its summit stands a green bronze statue of the Archangel Michael, holding the cross of peace in his hand. From the space before the Admiralty radiate off the three longest and widest streets in that city of wide and long streets. The centre one and longest is called the Nevkoi Prospekt, or the Neva Perspective. The names of other two may be translated Resurrection Perspective and Peas Street. The larger streets in the city are called Perspectives. Even the cross streets in Saint Petersburg are mostly wider than Bond Street, and often as wide and long as Regent Street. Many canals intersect the city, and enable bulky goods to be brought to within a short distance of all the houses by water; so that heavily-laden waggons are never seen ploughing their way through the streets, as in most cities. There are no narrow lanes or blind alleys either, the abode of poverty and pestilence, within the precincts of the palaces of the wealthy and great. Here, truly, poverty and rags are removed out of sight; but still they do not cease to dwell in the land. While our young travellers were standing looking at the Alexander Column, their fellow-voyager, Mr Henshaw, joined them. As he had been much in all parts of Russia, he was able to give them a great deal of interesting information.

“I would advise you first to get a general view of the city, and then study details,” said he. “Get a knowledge of the plan of the city, and the mode in which it is constructed; then examine the outside of the more important buildings; and, lastly, visit their interiors when they contain anything worth seeing. The first thing you should do to-morrow morning is to ascend the Admiralty tower; the scene from thence, as you look down into the streets, teeming with their countless multitudes, is very interesting, while you will also obtain a perfect bird’s-eye view of the whole city and surrounding land and water. We will now, if you please, take a stroll along the quay beyond the Winter Palace. There are many objects in that direction worth remarking.”

Cousin Giles gladly assented to the proposal, and, returning to the river, they continued eastward along its banks, passing the front of the Winter Palace. Near to it they stopped to look at a magnificent pile, called the Hermitage, which is about as unlike the residence of a dweller in the wilderness as anything in nature can well be. Mr Henshaw promised them a sight of the interior another day, and told them it contained some of the most magnificent rooms in the world, and was full of fine pictures, rich articles of vertu, and numberless valuable curiosities.

“It was called the Hermitage by the Empress Catherine,” said he, “because she, purposed to retire thither from the cares of state—not, however, to live the life of an anchorite, but to revel in that indulgence of all the objects of sense to which her inclinations prompted her.”

“But come along,” said Cousin Giles; “we agreed not to spend our time on details till we had mastered the geography of the city.”

So they continued their walk along the quays. Next to the Hermitage, and joined to it by a passage over an arch which spans a canal,—like the Bridge of Sighs at Venice, only smaller,—they passed the Imperial Theatre, and then a succession of fine residences of nobles and private persons, and lastly the Marble Palace of the Grand Duke Michael. It is so called not because it is built of marble, but because it has marble pillars. Across a street, on the same line, stands a fine pile, which looks like another palace, but in reality contains only the stables and offices, residences of servants, etcetera, belonging to the Marble Palace. Among the palaces they passed was a huge white one, with a very ugly portico.

“That,” said Mr Henshaw, “was presented by the Emperor Alexander to the Duke of Wellington, when he became a Russian field-marshal, that he might have a house to inhabit should he ever visit Russia. On his death it reverted to the Russian Government. Opposite to this row of palaces the Neva is very wide. A branch of it runs away in a more northerly direction, forming an island which has been covered with fortifications, and is called the citadel. In the centre stands a church with a lofty golden pinnacle. Beneath it lie buried the Russian Czars. Here is also a cottage, built by Peter the Great, where he used to reside while watching the progress of his navy and the uprearing of the now mighty city, called after his patron saint.”

“From a history I have been reading, I find that Peter was not nearly so great a man as I fancied,” observed Fred.